• tob*r yih, 1947 FLIGHT
AUTOMATIC CONTROL
Operational Sequence of the Transatlantic Flight : Importance of Landing
WE have no desire to be captious and it is withcomplete sincerity that we accord the Ameri-cans their every due in making the recent
automatically controlled flight across the Atlantic. It
was a fine achievement. But too much sensational
interpretation has been placed on the event. Admit-
tedly it is easy to regard the flight as the herald of a
new era in flying, and also easy to see in it a step
forward in mankind's progress toward doing his neigh-
bour injury without incurring risk to himself in the
process. Yet neither of these surface impressions is
truly accurate: the first is too long-sighted and the
second too short-sighted.
This whole achievement must be seen in undistorted
perspective. Fully automatic control of aircraft as a
normal operating procedure is by no means with us as
yet nor is it likely to come for quite some considerable
time. As for the military side, automatic control is far
more likely to be eclipsed by the remote control of
expendable missiles.
Essentially, the greatest single factor in importance
in the Americans' recent flight lies in the automatic
landing made at Brize Norton. Interesting and im-
pressive as are the other aspects of the flight, these pale
in significance beside the landing feature. We in this
country are not behind the Americans in automatic
control—at least not in essentials—and in point of fact
a Lancaster at the Blind Landing Experimental Unit,
Martlesham, has already executed some 200 automatic
approaches, many of which have embraced automatic
landing. In. this connection the availability of the new
British Smith electric autopilot (Flight, September 25th)
is expected to expedite matters considerably for it is
officially regarded as the most advanced automatic pilot
in the world. The business of feeding the requisite
information into an automatic pilot is not essentially
difficult; in fact, had a sufficiently good autopilot then
existed much of what was done in this spectacular trans-
atlantic crossing Could have been accomplished before
the war. Not so expeditiously, of course, since to-day
much is done by electronic means which, two years ago,
had not been developed.
Although not intended to be a faithful representation of the actual track, this map does give the essential geography of the flight.
I 0 t T H A T I A I T I C
OCEAN